When I was in high school, I loved to volunteer at a small ranch and environmental education center north of San Francisco on the California coast. On many of the days, elementary school children who lived in the city came to visit, and they’d learn how to milk goats, brush sheep, card wool, identify vegetables growing in the garden, and collect eggs from the hen house. Often we’d hike a coastal trail to the Pacific Ocean and look for starfish and various marine life in the tide pools.
For many of the kids, this was a whole new world. It was so inspiring to witness their childlike curiosity and delight. I greatly admired that, and I continue to learn from their sense of wonder. Each day I strive to live more fully with the awe of a child making discoveries for the first time—especially when it comes to being a spiritual explorer.
Seeking to understand the nature of the Divine, and how it reveals itself in everyday experience, is my heart’s daily quest. It’s invigorating to look for fresh ways that divine attributes such as love, gratitude, thoughtfulness, and unselfishness can be observed, appreciated, and expressed in a day’s activities, even in the midst of what appears routine. What’s awesome to realize is that these benevolent qualities give evidence of God, the very source of all good. Relishing the wonderful variety, vitality, and dimension of each spiritual quality springing from God is a moment-by-moment adventure.
In essence, this is what we were exploring on the ranch—God’s attributes shining through the patience of the goats letting us milk them, the courage of children feeding chickens for the first time, the innocent joy we felt splashing in the ocean. We were experiencing the heavenly qualities of God right at hand.
Being alive to the divine traits expressed through and around us is a way of beholding the wondrous nature or “hallowed name” of God animating existence. Perhaps that’s what the Psalmist heralded in his lyric: “Unto thee, O God, do we give thanks, unto thee do we give thanks: for that thy name is near thy wondrous works declare” (Psalms 75:1).
When days become dulled by repetition and routine, which block childlike observation of God’s goodness, I always find it refreshing to be spiritually curious about the thriving attributes of God, divine Life and Love, gracing each moment. Recognizing and celebrating God as the source of every good quality infuses daily living with vital spiritual meaning.
Spirit, God, is expressing and orchestrating its holy qualities throughout each day with brilliant originality, revealing “new views of divine goodness and love” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 66). Let’s welcome and embrace these new vistas today with the joy of those exuberant kids at the ranch!
